A Semi-Daily Advocate of the Modern School, Industrial Unionism, and
Individual Liberty.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Little Brother

I finally sat down and read Little Brother yesterday. It is both essential and enjoyable. My biggest concerns about the book, from a teacher's point of view, is that it is so closely bound to the present it may be obselete by 2012.

Similarly, I think it is easy to slightly mis-read it as near-future sci fi, when it is so grounded in the present and really the recent past. I mean, for example, the precedent was established almost a decade ago that non-violent protest in the US would be met by para-military forces, chemical weapons and illegal detention, and that the primary source of news about this would be internet media, and that we'd mostly forget about it anyhow, and just sort of wonder about why there isn't an anti-war movement now.

Side question: do any/many school libraries have the capacity to print and bind freely available books like this one at a cheaper rate than they can buy the regular bound version?

Also, based on the set of things they don't seem to already know, I get the impression that many K-12 ed-tech bloggers don't read Cory regularly on Boing Boing. This baffles me.

I too liked Little Brother. Had I read it sooner, I would have chosen it for my "summer reading" text. As it is, my students will be reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I'll be pointing them toward Little Brother at the end of our discussion group.